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Tennis Video Goes Viral and It's Not Even About Tennis

Tennis fans will have had their eyes glued to the boob tube these past couple of weeks, which saw several epic matches, crowned by a record-breaking finals match between the world number one, Novak Djokovic, and the world number two, Rafael Nadal. As the sport of tennis continues to delve deeper into social media—both Novak and Rafael have Twitter accounts—tons of game highlights were added to YouTube. And the most-watched of them all—by far—wasn't even of people playing tennis.

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Facebook Developer Launches 'Dont Be Evil' Plugin For Less Biased Google Search Results [VIDEO]

A group of engineers has built a bookmarklet that redirects Google's new social search to results that include all social networks—including Twitter, Tumblr, and even MySpace—versus just Google+. Led by Facebook developer Blake Ross, the plugin is called "Don't Be Evil"—Google's now controversial mantra—and is hosted on a website called "Focus on the User," another jab at Google's seemingly corrupt philosophy.

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Twitter: Google+ Does Not Concern Us

Twitter has spoken. And Google+ is not on its radar.

Co-founder Jack Dorsey spoke at a technology conference yesterday and stated that his company was much more than a social network and that Google's latest bid in the social space was not a concerning issue.

Describing Twitter as a personal news service as much as a "social network" like Facebook is considered, Jack called his microblogging platform an "information utility" in which "the biggest value is finding out what's happening in your world in real time." He also said that Twitter was still busy building itself and not focused on the competition.

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Tumblr Reaches 15 Billion Pageviews Per Month; YouTube Streams 4 Billion Videos Per Day

Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp revealed today at the Digital Life Design Conference in Munich that his blogging platform is visited by over 120 million unique users per month, resulting in more than 15 billion pageviews. Tumblr is now host to nearly 42 million blogs.

These numbers stack up well to four months ago, when 30 million blogs tallied up 13 billion monthly pageviews. Tumblr has raised incredible amounts of money, too—over $120 million in total, which it uses to "scale" its business and apply "real focus to further development." However, as a result, controversy surrounds the startup because it has thus far failed to monetize sustainably.

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Google Numbers: 250 Million Android Devices, 11 Billion App Downloads, 90 Million Google+ Users

Search engine and software behemoth Google released several big non-financial numbers today during its Q4 earnings report. (The financial numbers, while decent, actually fell short of Wall Street expectations, causing the stock to tumble 9% in afterhours trading.)

GOOGLE+

Chief executive officer Larry Page said during the company's earnings call that its social network, Google+, now has 90 million users globally—double the amount three months ago, and nearly half of 5-year-old Twitter's user count. But, like Twitter, not everyone is active. Roughly 60% of Google+ are active daily while 80% are active weekly, Larry says, although I suspect that these numbers are manipulated in Google's favour by counting indirect or involuntary engagements through the company's search engine and other tightly intertwined products.

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Apple Owners Are Highly Optimistic While BlackBerry Owners Are Extremely Negative [STUDY]

Research continues to reinforce the idea that certain types of people consistently wind up choosing certain brands of technology. For example, prior studies have suggested that iOS users tend to have higher incomes and education than Android users. Now, a new survey conducted this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by gadget recycling company Gazelle revealed some more stark differences between the owners of different mobile operating platforms.

As it turns out, iOS users are substantially more optimistic than BlackBerry users, with Android users falling roughly in the middle. According to Gazelle, over half of iOS users "expect the best in uncertain times," while a stunning 0% of BlackBerry users "usually expect the best" and about one-third of Android users are "always optimistic about their future."

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Google Reacts to Twitter's Response in Civil Manner, but We Know That Blood is Boiling

Yesterday, Google announced salient changes to its search engine. Most notably, it placed an emphasis on Google+.

We’re […] introducing three new features:

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page; 

2. Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and, 

3. People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community. 

This immediately caught the eye of venture capitalist and tech journalist MG Siegler, who called the move "a slippery slope for Google" and believes the U.S. Justice Department will launch another antitrust inquiry on the company as a result.

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Google+ is Officially Becoming Relevant in Search. It Might Be Time to Get a Google+ Profile

Jon Mitchell at Read Write Web has been an outspoken proponent of how Google+ may ruin search results as he believes the Internet will "warp" if the only way to matter is to Google-optimize. He tweets about the changes that will register when you go on the search engine in the next few days: "Google is allowing me to expand my Google-identity beyond Google+. Facebook does not do that."

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These are the Five Most Leading Edge Technology Brands in Canada

What brands are considered "leading edge" by Canadians? Ipsos Reid conducted a nationwide survey of Canadian adults to find out. As part of its Ipsos Influence Index study to identify key factors that drive brand influence, the market research firm uncovered the 10 companies Canada believes are at the forefront of innovative excellence.

5 of the 10 companies in the list are technology companies. Number one overall is Apple, who won for its originality, innovation, and revolutionary product design. Steve Levy, president of Ipsos Reid, said that "it's been amazing to see what Apple has accomplished over the past decade, through the introduction of innovative and iconic products."

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